The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.
The Official Report search offers lots of different ways to find the information you’re looking for. The search is used as a professional tool by researchers and third-party organisations. It is also used by members of the public who may have less parliamentary awareness. This means it needs to provide the ability to run complex searches, and the ability to browse reports or perform a simple keyword search.
The web version of the Official Report has three different views:
Depending on the kind of search you want to do, one of these views will be the best option. The default view is to show the report for each meeting of Parliament or a committee. For a simple keyword search, the results will be shown by item of business.
When you choose to search by a particular MSP, the results returned will show each spoken contribution in Parliament or a committee, ordered by date with the most recent contributions first. This will usually return a lot of results, but you can refine your search by keyword, date and/or by meeting (committee or Chamber business).
We’ve chosen to display the entirety of each MSP’s contribution in the search results. This is intended to reduce the number of times that users need to click into an actual report to get the information that they’re looking for, but in some cases it can lead to very short contributions (“Yes.”) or very long ones (Ministerial statements, for example.) We’ll keep this under review and get feedback from users on whether this approach best meets their needs.
There are two types of keyword search:
If you select an MSP’s name from the dropdown menu, and add a phrase in quotation marks to the keyword field, then the search will return only examples of when the MSP said those exact words. You can further refine this search by adding a date range or selecting a particular committee or Meeting of the Parliament.
It’s also possible to run basic Boolean searches. For example:
There are two ways of searching by date.
You can either use the Start date and End date options to run a search across a particular date range. For example, you may know that a particular subject was discussed at some point in the last few weeks and choose a date range to reflect that.
Alternatively, you can use one of the pre-defined date ranges under “Select a time period”. These are:
If you search by an individual session, the list of MSPs and committees will automatically update to show only the MSPs and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of MSPs and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of MSPs and committees will update to show the information that was current at that time.
All Official Reports of meetings in the Debating Chamber of the Scottish Parliament.
All Official Reports of public meetings of committees.
Displaying 778 contributions
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 25 September 2024
Lorna Slater
That highlights clearly the frustration in relation to how, even if we are not arguing about quantums, communication—especially between the two Governments—about what might come years down the line could be improved.
For my second question, I will pick up on what Douglas Colquhoun said about evidencing the impact. A couple of weeks ago, I put this question to South of Scotland Enterprise and Highlands and Island Enterprise. You give out direct support in loans, grants and so on, but how do you measure the impact of your indirect support? How do you evidence teaching someone to fish versus giving someone fish?
I got different answers from the two enterprise agencies: South of Scotland Enterprise said that it was in the process of delivering those metrics, and Highlands and Islands Enterprise was less clear on how it showed the most effective intervention on the economy. As great as it feels to give out money, is that the most effective intervention, or are those other things equally effective? I am interested to hear your views.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 18 September 2024
Lorna Slater
Does Professor Bell have any thoughts on that question?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 18 September 2024
Lorna Slater
My follow-on question is along those lines. I will pick up from where my colleague Michelle Thomson left off, around the question of how we get there. For me, the bigger question is about knowing where we are going. We know that we are not going to get to the 2030 targets, but we must get to 2045 and I do not think that there is political consensus about what 2045 will look like. To me, it is less about how we get there than about what we are trying to get to. Have we agreed on what transportation will look like in 2045? Do we know what all our buildings will look like? Do we know what our industry, our agriculture and our land use will look like? Can we agree on where we are trying to get to?
The question about clarity is relevant. I do not think that there has been clarity about which industries will have to contract. We hear a lot about growth, but not all industries can grow. Aviation cannot grow; other high-carbon industries cannot grow; they must contract. We need some clarity and honesty about saying that a transition means that some industries will contract and some industries will grow. Equally, some regions of Scotland might not grow, or they might contract, while other regions will grow.
I am interested in your commentary on both those points. How do we get a vision of where we are going? Do you feel that there is such a vision, or do we need to develop that? Is the information out there about what needs to grow and what needs to contract? If it is out there, how do we make sure that it is getting the clarity and presentation it needs?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 18 September 2024
Lorna Slater
Professor Roy, does that feed through into the work that you do for the Scottish Government in terms of saying, “We know that these industries must contract and that these regions of Scotland will not be able to grow but that other regions will?” Does that feed through?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 18 September 2024
Lorna Slater
I have two questions, the second one of which has come up. I will get into them.
Professor Roy, I am delighted that you highlighted the cost of not taking action, because the question “Who is going to pay for it?” frustrates me continually. Who is going to pay for it, if we do not? That would be much worse.
Professor Bell, you brought to our attention the fact that some of the changes that we need to make will not cost the public purse. I agree: not all the transformative policies that we need necessarily need to cost the public purse money.
I worry that, in this larger debate, there is a sometimes a tone of, “Oh, it is just too expensive. We can’t do it. Net zero is too expensive.” However, policies such as removing subsidies from aviation, giving farmers the same amount of money for doing slightly different things, demanding management charges such as congestion charges and workplace parking levies, having a carbon land tax and putting in regulation on heat pumps and insulation to level the playing field do not cost the Government anything. However, we have such difficulty moving those things forward.
Do either of you—perhaps Professor Roy—have any comment on what kind of political consensus we need? What is the difficulty in moving forward with those policies, even though they do not actually cost the public purse anything?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 11 September 2024
Lorna Slater
Thank you. My second question is about fair work. How has the fair work conditionality that the Scottish Government brought in affected the distribution of capital funding and other grants? Have you had to change your models? Are different companies applying? I am interested in hearing how that has gone.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 11 September 2024
Lorna Slater
I have three questions. The first two are for both enterprise agencies and the third is for HIE.
To follow on from Colin Smyth’s question—both Stuart Black and Jane Morrison-Ross have spoken on this topic—how do you measure the effectiveness of grants versus the support that you describe? In my mind, it is like the saying about teaching a man to fish versus giving a man a fish. How do you measure that?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 11 September 2024
Lorna Slater
My final question is for Highlands and Islands Enterprise. Thank you for the paper that you sent; the traffic light system is useful. The external green investment figures, like all the external investment figures, are staggering and you have wildly exceeded your expectations. How was that achieved? Was it a one-off situation? How are you defining green investment and how are you ensuring that that money is actually going to people and businesses in Scotland?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 11 September 2024
Lorna Slater
Thank you, convener—I am grateful for your allowing me to come back in.
Scotland’s national parks have annual budgets of around £10 million a year. We have two of them; I am hoping that we are going to get a third. In terms of the success and the growth of the visitor economy, is that money well spent?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 26 June 2024
Lorna Slater
Thank you, convener. My interests are the same as those noted in my entry in the register of members’ interests: I worked for Orbital Marine Power at the time of my election and worked out my notice with the company after I was elected, and I am a member of Unite the union.